A cart or dray is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people.
A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping and, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. Two-wheeled carriages are informal and usually owner-driven.
A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
A horse and buggy or horse and carriage refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two horses. Also called a roadster or a trap, it was made with two wheels in England and the United States. It had a folding or falling top.
A kalesa or calesa is a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage used in the Philippines. It is commonly vividly painted and decorated. It was a primary mode of public and private transportation during the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines, though in modern times, they largely only survive as tourist attractions.
A runabout is a car body style popular in the 1910s, based on the horse-drawn runabout carriage.
A brake was a horse-drawn carriage used in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the training of horses for draft work, or an early automobile of similar body design. A shooting-brake was a brake pressed into service to carry beaters, gamekeepers and sportsmen with their dogs, guns and game.
A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two- or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage for one or two people with a folding hood or calash top. The name, in use in England before 1700, came from the French word "chaise" through a transference from a sedan-chair to a wheeled vehicle.
A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks instead of being slaughtered to harvest animal products. Some are used for their physical strength or for transportation, while others are service animals trained to execute certain specialized tasks. They may also be used for milking or herding. Some, at the end of their working lives, may also be used for meat or other products such as leather.
A gig, also called chair or chaise, is a light, two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport.
A dogcart is a light horse-drawn vehicle, originally designed for sporting shooters, with a box behind the driver's seat to contain one or more retriever dogs. The dog box could be converted to a second seat. Later variants included :
The chariot that evolved from the ancient vehicle of this name took on two main forms:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transport:
The dandy waggon is a type of railway carriage used to carry horses on gravity trains. They are particularly associated with the narrow gauge Festiniog Railway (FR) in Wales where they were used between 1836 and 1863.
Driving, when applied to horses, ponies, mules, or donkeys, is a broad term for hitching equines to a wagon, carriage, cart, sleigh, or other horse-drawn vehicle by means of a harness and working them in this way. It encompasses a wide range of activities from pleasure driving, to harness racing, to farm work, horse shows, and even international combined driving.
A surrey is a doorless, four-wheeled carriage popular in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Usually two-seated and holding for four passengers, surreys had a variety of tops that included a rigid, fringed canopy, parasol, and extension. The seats were traditional, spindle-backed, bench seats. Before the advent of automobiles, these were horse-drawn carriages.
A governess cart is a small two-wheeled horse-drawn cart. Their distinguishing feature is a small tub body, with two opposed inward-facing seats. They could seat four, although there was little room for four large adults. The driver sat sideways on one of these seats. The centre rear of the body was lowered, or else had a small hinged door, and there was a step beneath. The wheels were of moderate size, always fitted with mudguards, and usually carried on elliptical springs. The axle was either straight or dropped, giving a low, stable, centre of gravity.
An ekka is a one-horse carriage used in northern India. Ekkas were something like 'traps', and were commonly used as cabs, or private hire vehicles in 19th-century India. They find frequent mention in colonial literature of the period. It is also said that some kind of ekkas were used by people of Indus Valley civilisation.
The Concord coach is a type of horse-drawn coach, often used as stagecoaches, mailcoaches, and hotel coaches. The term was first used for the coaches built by coach-builder J. Stephen Abbot and wheelwright Lewis Downing of the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, New Hampshire, but later to be sometimes used generically. Like their predecessors, the Concords employed a style of suspension and construction particularly suited to North America's early 19th century roads. Leather thoroughbraces suspend passengers who are in constant motion while the coach is moving. The swaying is accepted by passengers for the shock absorbing action of the leather straps and for the way the special motion eases the coach over very rough patches of roadway. This suspension, which was developed by Philip de Chiese in the 17th century, was long replaced by steel springs in England.
